The Mother of All Environmental Problems

It was Mother’s Day, and the staff of the independent-living community where my mother resides.

PURSUING STUFF: Flat screen televisions for sale are seen at a retail store April 30 in New York. Chris Hondros/Getty Images

It was Mother’s Day, and the staff of the independent-living community where my mother resides had arranged a nice luncheon, with roses for all the mothers.

When a cherubic child with golden ringlets pressed a flower into my hand, and I politely refused it, she became confused. No wonder, since it was assumed by everyone that of course all adult women in attendance were mothers

At 50-something I am an adult, but not a mother. And though some will gasp in horror, I consider that to be my greatest achievement as a conservationist, although finding the first saw-whet owl ever reported in my part of Virginia ranks pretty high, too.

For millennia, the relentless ticking of a woman’s biological clock has equated her entire life with only one purpose: childbearing. And for my gender, menopause has always largely meant the end of meaning.

I’ve lived through that transition now, without despair or Prozac. And I’m not alone. Today large numbers of married women are choosing not to have children, if only because more opportunities are being offered to more women than ever before. It was my good fortune to come of age with such choices and to find a husband who honored them.